by Chris MaGee
(Sorry, couldn't resist the Beatles reference...)
Wow! This could actually be great! Word broke online last night that French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung will be adapting Haruki Murakami's 1987 novel "Norwegian Wood" into a feature film. The project will be produced by Asmik Ace and Fuji TV and Tran plans to work with an entirely Japanese cast, but the casting process won't be taking place until sometime early next year with a release date set for 2010.
Now, if this were one of Murakami's more surreal books like "A Wild Sheep Chase" or "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles" I'd be a bit worried, but Tran seems like a fantastic pick for this. His films "Scent of Green Papaya" and "Cyclo" are real beauties, slow but sensitive dramas with some gorgeous visuals. All this should fit very nicely with the reminiscences of Toru Watanabe who during the heady days of the 1960s becomes involved in a love triangle between the beautiful Naoko and the extroverted Midori.
Wow! This could actually be great! Word broke online last night that French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung will be adapting Haruki Murakami's 1987 novel "Norwegian Wood" into a feature film. The project will be produced by Asmik Ace and Fuji TV and Tran plans to work with an entirely Japanese cast, but the casting process won't be taking place until sometime early next year with a release date set for 2010.
Now, if this were one of Murakami's more surreal books like "A Wild Sheep Chase" or "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles" I'd be a bit worried, but Tran seems like a fantastic pick for this. His films "Scent of Green Papaya" and "Cyclo" are real beauties, slow but sensitive dramas with some gorgeous visuals. All this should fit very nicely with the reminiscences of Toru Watanabe who during the heady days of the 1960s becomes involved in a love triangle between the beautiful Naoko and the extroverted Midori.
This will only be the second film adaptation of a Murakami work. Director Jun Ichikawa brought Murakami's short story "Tony Takitani" to the screen in 2004.
Thanks to Jason Gray and Variety Japan for the details on this.
Thanks to Jason Gray and Variety Japan for the details on this.
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1 comment:
Actually it's not the second adaptation of Murakami's novels. Most famous is Ichikawa movie, but for exemple his first novel (translated as Hear the wind sing) has been adapted in 1981, directed by Omori kazuki and distributed by ATG).
Murakami's short novel Bakery Attack (written in 1981) was also adapted in 1982 by a director (sorry no idea of the name) who also make a second Murakami adaptation movie the following year (100%..something. DVD is available on amazon japan if you want to take a look). Still for Japan, there's also http://jp.con-can.com/watch/preview.php?id=20085028.
And as far as I can remember isn't there a gaijin adaptation with Joan Chen (cn't remember title and i'm too lazy to check on the imdb, but there was "dance" in name)
And by the way, tks for yr blog. It's a daily pleasure to read (and where do you find sufficient time to make daily updated)
cheers
http://nihon-eiga.over-blog.com/
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